


Lonely Places, Solemn Graces

by 1863



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Forced Cohabitation, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28542576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1863/pseuds/1863
Summary: With his quest over and the Razor Crest gone, Din finds himself at a loose end on Nevarro, where the unfamiliar quiet makes it difficult for him to relax.Fortunately or unfortunately, there’s nothing quite like Migs Mayfeld to chase away the silence.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Migs Mayfeld
Comments: 50
Kudos: 295





	Lonely Places, Solemn Graces

**Author's Note:**

> The first part was written for the prompt: 100 words of denial, and then it kind of got out of hand.
> 
> The title is paraphrased from the sonnet _Silence_ , by Edgar Allan Poe.

It’s strange, being back on Nevarro now.

Greef had given him an entire house to stay in, all the way on the very edge of town and far from any potential prying eyes, having flat-out refused to take no for an answer. 

“You need the space,” Greef had insisted, when Din tried to tell him that any available room in any random inn would be more than enough. “And whatever you need, my friend, Nevarro will provide for you. I’ll see to that.” Cara just nodded her agreement and the next thing Din knew, he was being dropped off at a pleasant-looking house in the middle of nowhere and made to promise to call if he needed anything.

“Anything,” Cara repeated, giving him a long, hard stare. “You’re not alone here, Mando.” 

And so now Din finds himself in the front room, pacing the short distance between the hallway and the window and trying not to notice how strangely quiet it is. No constant hum of the Razor Crest’s engines in the background, no beeps and bloops from the nav console, no wordless gurgling from the back seat while the kid played with his little silver ball. Nothing but the sound of his own heavy footsteps against the stone tile as he walks, back and forth and back again, and again and again and again.

He’s used to quiet places – living in the covert had seen to that, the clang and hiss of the Armourer’s work notwithstanding – but there’s quiet and there’s _quiet_ , and it’s only now that Din realises he hasn’t been this alone since before he found the kid. 

Grogu. He remembers the kid’s face as the turbolift door slid shut, how his tiny fingers gripped the Jedi’s dark cloak. How those same fingers touched his bare face, briefly, and how long it had been since he’d felt the warmth of another person’s hand against his jaw.

Din shakes his head. He doesn’t want to get rid of the memory, far from it, but he knows that dwelling on things he can’t change is a useless waste of time. Despite being alone in the house he still has his helmet on, and the familiar weight of it around his head is a comfort. Maybe he should just go back to town and find Greef and Cara again. He could offer his services to Cara’s office, maybe, or even go over to Greef’s – at least then he’d have the Mythrol’s constant chatter to distract him there.

Constant chatter…

_We just call him Brown Eyes._

Din blinks. 

Of course – Mayfeld never shut up, either. Din wonders where he is now. Almost definitely not on Morak anymore; if anyone could talk their way right off a planet, even a planet with a secret Imperial facility on it, it would be Migs Mayfeld.

_You did what you had to do. I never saw your face._

But he did. Mayfeld did see his face – stared, even, and registered enough of it to notice the colour of his eyes. And aside from Grogu and the Jedi – and IG-11, Din remembers with an unexpected pang in his chest – Mayfeld is the only other person in all the galaxy who would recognise him without his armour on.

The thought makes Din go still. Migs Mayfeld, he thinks. Former Imp. Former prisoner. A mercenary, a criminal. A man who would’ve left him to rot on Bothan-Five, but a man who ended up facing his demons and keeping his word, and helped him rescue the kid. 

A man who saw his face and saved his life, who looked him right in the eyes – and then let Din pretend that he never saw a thing. 

Din takes his helmet off. He carefully lays it down on the table in the kitchen before walking slowly to the bathroom, where the light flickers on as the door slides open for him. There’s a mirror there, above the sink, and Din stares at his reflection, wondering what Mayfeld might have seen in his face that day, in his eyes. His brown eyes. 

He’s unused to keeping his thoughts off his face, having spent a lifetime interacting with the world through a barrier of beskar. Without the helmet on Din thinks he looks strange – smaller and more uncertain, and lost, somehow. Is that what Mayfeld saw? 

_Is it that you can't take off your Mando helmet, or that you can't show your face? ‘Cause there's a difference._

Before Grogu, it would have been a moot point. He'd never do the former, so the latter would never happen. And before Mayfeld brought it up, he would never even have contemplated that there might be a difference in the first place. But there is a difference, of course there is, and now, Mayfeld has witnessed him doing both.

Din frowns. He watches this in the mirror as he does it: his eyebrows drawing down, his mouth flattening into a thin, grim line. Impulsively, he reaches up and touches his own face, fingers stroking his jaw. Grogu touching his face had triggered a long-buried memory of his mother doing the same thing, but now Din is thinking of Mayfeld, and Mayfeld’s hands, and how sure and steady they are on a rifle’s trigger. How the calluses and scars on his fingers might feel against skin that’s never been touched by someone who wasn’t family, how his pale hands might look against the darker shade of his own cheek, cupping his jaw, trailing slowly down his neck. Whether the mouth that never stopped moving would be as relentless with other things as it was when it was spouting an endless stream of words.

Din drops his hands and looks away from the mirror. 

The Mythrol, he thinks firmly, stepping back and out of the bathroom. He should go and find the Mythrol. It’s too quiet here; he misses the kid and the Crest and having something specific to do, that’s all. He just needs some noise, some distraction, something to do with his hands. Besides, he’s probably the last person Mayfeld would want to see.

Din puts the helmet back on. If it feels a little heavier than it did before, he chooses to ignore it.

**

He’s leaning against a wall in Greef’s office, half-listening to the Mythrol and Greef bickering about how poorly the accounts are organised, when he hears it: two pairs of footsteps and a distinctive voice that, Din realises with some surprise, he’d be able to recognise anywhere. 

“– doesn’t matter what you say, Marshal, you can’t prove I was ever there. And anyway, I’m a changed man now, aren’t I? Turned over a new leaf, made a fresh start, found the light of goodness in my heart, all that crap –”

The voice cuts off so suddenly that Din instinctively straightens up, one hand making an aborted move for his blaster even though he has no intention of actually grabbing it, much less aiming it at the man who’s frozen in place now, staring at him with wide, almost panicked eyes. 

Blue, Din thinks. Mayfeld’s eyes are blue. He’d never noticed that before.

“Mayfeld,” he says, after a brief, awkward pause. “No one told me you were here,” he adds, glancing at Cara. “On Nevarro, I mean.” 

Cara frowns a little. “You didn’t ask,” she replies. “Is this a problem?” The frown deepens when Din can’t think of a way to answer that doesn’t sound like a lie. “I can vouch for him, and so can Greef – he’s been staying out of trouble, helping us out when we need it.”

“Yes,” Greef agrees. “He’s been doing good work. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Din says.

“Yeah?” Mayfeld cuts him a wary glance. “Then why are you so tense I can practically hear you vibrating in your Mando suit?”

“I’m not tense. I’m just –” 

The words die in his throat when he sees the expression on Mayfeld’s face shift, by just the tiniest degree. The wariness is replaced by something else – something less guarded, but something a lot less expected too, there and gone in the blink of an eye. Still, Din knows what he saw.

Concern. For one very brief moment, Migs Mayfeld, of all people, looked genuinely concerned for him. 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Din snaps, sharper than he meant to be. Cara and Greef just stare at him, but Mayfeld looks away and Din feels a completely irrational rush of guilt at that, one strong enough that he has to take several deep breaths before he speaks again. “Okay,” he concedes, “I was worried. But not about you being a turncoat.”

“Then what?” Mayfeld asks. He’s still averting his gaze, eyes fixed on the wall somewhere above the Mythrol’s head. “What are you worried about, Mando?”

“Cara’s a Marshal now,” Din replies. “If someone from the New Republic comes by and finds you here –”

That makes Mayfeld turn his head. “You,” he starts, then stops. He stares, incredulous. “You’re worried about _me_?” 

“Both of you,” Din adds quickly, gesturing to Cara, then Greef. “All of you. If an official finds out that you’re not really dead, then you’d all be arrested. And you’d probably be sentenced to worse than a chop field.”

“And I think that’s my cue to leave,” the Mythrol announces. He stands, so quickly that a pile of fobs and datapads clatters to the floor. “Sorry, sorry,” he mutters, picking them up and dumping them all on the desk again. “Boss? Lunch break? Please?” 

Greef rolls his eyes, but jerks his head towards the door anyway. “Go on, get out of here. But if you breathe so much as a word of this to anyone, our deal’s off and your debt is doubled.” 

“Copy that.” The Mythrol gives Greef a half-hearted salute and then all but runs for the door.

“Are you sure it’s wise, letting him go?” Din asks, but Cara shakes her head. 

“Relax, Mando,” she says. “The higher-ups almost never come this far into the Outer Rim, and they’d let me know they were coming before they got here. Besides, you know how to keep a low profile, right, Mayfeld?”

There’s a very long pause. 

“Well…”

“ _Mayfeld_ ,” Cara grits out, but the tightness of her voice makes it clear that the silence was answer enough. “Dank farrik,” she swears. “What have you done this time?”

“Nothing!” Mayfeld protests, but as soon as Greef and Cara step towards him, jaws tight and hands hovering near their blasters, Mayfeld throws his hands up and backs away. “Look,” he says, “it ain’t my fault, all right? I was just in a cantina, having a drink, minding my own business. But then –”

“What?” Cara demands, when Mayfeld cuts himself off. “What happened?”

“Someone saw me,” Mayfeld admits. “Someone I used to serve with. You know, back when I was – back in the day.”

Cara’s face hardens. “You mean an Imp.”

“Ex-Imp,” Mayfeld corrects. “Look, I remember the guy, he was just a grunt like me – never a true believer or anything like that. But he was also one hell of an opportunist.” Mayfeld sighs. “I don’t know if he heard that I died on Morak, but if he did, and he recognised me here? He’ll find some way to use it to his advantage.”

“If he’s already informed the New Republic, they’ll be checking the logs of every ship that leaves orbit,” Greef points out. “It’ll be tough to get you out.”

“Hang on a second,” Cara interjects. “We don’t even know if the guy’s told anyone yet. Trying to sneak Mayfeld out now might just draw more attention.”

“So, what do I do?” Mayfeld asks. He shoots rueful looks at Cara and Greef but barely even glances at Din, his eyes quickly skimming the helmet before looking away again. “I just lay low for a while?”

Cara nods. “Give me the info on the ex-Imp and Greef and I will do a little digging. We’ll contact you when we know more.”

“You can’t stay at that inn anymore, though,” Greef says. “It’s too central. You need to get out of town.” 

“Great,” Mayfeld mutters. “Thought I’d given up sleeping outdoors for good when I finally got off Morak.” He shakes his head and sighs again. “I don’t suppose any of you got a tent I could borrow? I’m not exactly built for the lava plain life.” He gestures at his face, the paleness of his skin a stark contrast to the black shirt he’s wearing. 

The words are out of Din’s mouth before he even registers what he’s saying.

“You can stay with me.”

Three pairs of eyes turn to stare at him, and Din isn’t sure he’s ever been quite so grateful that he always has a helmet on. 

“It’s a big house,” he adds.

Something passes over Mayfeld’s face, too quickly for Din to read. “Listen, Mando,” Mayfeld starts, “I appreciate the offer, but –”

“Mando’s right,” Cara interrupts. “It’s a big house and it’s well away from the town, so it’s as good a place as any to stay. And if any trouble does come your way –”

“I’ll be there,” Din finishes. Mayfeld just stares at him again. “I mean,” he adds, “I can help you deal with it. Whatever it is.” 

“Then it’s settled,” Greef declares, clapping his hands together. “You and Mando should head back to the house as soon as possible. Marshal Dune and I have work to do.”

To Din’s surprise, Mayfeld doesn’t protest any further. In fact, he doesn’t respond at all. But when he glances at Din with another unreadable look on his face, Din is only just able to stop himself from reaching up and checking that his helmet is still on, because despite the beskar and the weapons and all the layers of his armour, that one brief look makes Din feel strangely exposed.

**

“So,” Mayfeld says, glancing around the front room, “how do you want to do this? Draw a line down the middle, or something? I stay on my side and you stay on yours?”

“I took the first room off the hallway,” Din replies, ignoring the question altogether. “You can take any of the others. Kitchen’s over there,” he says, gesturing to the left, “and the bathroom’s on the other side of the hall.” Din pauses, then starts heading for the back door. “I should secure the perimeter while you… while you get settled in.”

“Don’t exactly have much to settle,” Mayfeld says. His voice is unexpectedly quiet and Din stops for a moment, half-turning back. Mayfeld holds up the one bag he’d brought with him and shrugs. “Fugitive life, right? No point in having much stuff if you’ve gotta make a run for it at a moment’s notice.”

“I suppose not.” Din thinks about the Razor Crest, all the random bits and pieces of his life that went up in smoke when Moff Gideon turned it to ash. “Guess that makes two of us,” he says. “Not having much stuff, I mean.”

“Guess so,” Mayfeld agrees. He seems to hesitate, then adds, “Listen, I heard about what happened. I’m sorry about the ship. And the kid.”

“The kid’s where he belongs,” Din says automatically, but Mayfeld’s eyes narrow a little and Din knows he isn’t fooling anyone. “So are you just planning to stand there, or are you going to help me secure the perimeter now?” he asks, just to forestall the risk of those watchful eyes seeing anything else he doesn’t really want to be seen.

It works – Mayfeld heaves a put-upon sigh and makes a show of throwing his bag to the floor – but from the quick, sideways glance Mayfeld throws at him as he steps past, Din is pretty sure that Mayfeld sees through that, too. 

**

It’s the smell that wakes him up.

It’s not like anything he’d ever woken up to on the Razor Crest before, or in the covert, or even in some of the fancier inns he’d been able to stay in when he’d taken on work for the well-to-do. It smells, for lack of a better word, like a _home_ : baking bread, frying meat, freshly brewed caf. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” Mayfeld says, when he finally notices Din standing in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at the table laid out with food. “Couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d make myself useful. I hope you’re hungry.” 

Din takes in the pots and pans drying near the sink, the steam rising from the cups, the pale streaks of flour dusting Mayfeld’s shirt and hands.

“You made all this?” he asks.

Mayfeld shrugs. “My mom worked in a cantina when I was a kid. I hung out in the kitchen a lot, picked up a few things.” He laughs a little. “Always thought I’d follow in her footsteps one day, you know? But then I got –” He stops suddenly, the smile disappearing and shadows darkening his eyes.

“What?” Din asks. “You got what?”

Mayfeld takes a breath. “I got recruited,” he says. “How’s that for irony, huh?” He smiles again, but there’s something hard about it, something brittle. “Ol’ fast-talking Migs Mayfeld ends up falling for a pitch himself.” His voice goes quiet. “Hook, line, and sinker.” He lapses into silence, the look in his eyes going unfocused in a way that Din isn’t used to. Mayfeld is a sharpshooter, after all; he sees everything, and his eyes are always, always alert. 

“Mayfeld–”

“Anyway, I’ll leave you to it.” Mayfeld straightens up and flashes another quick smile. “You can just leave it if you don’t want it, though. It’ll keep.” He ducks his head and starts to leave but some inexplicable impulse makes Din grab his shoulder as he steps past. Mayfeld immediately goes still under his hand.

“You don’t want any?” Din asks.

And Mayfeld glances over, looking into the visor, and Din isn’t sure how but Mayfeld seems to know exactly where his eyes are, because he manages to look right into them. He holds Din’s gaze for a moment. 

“I can have some later,” he says, and Din belatedly realises what Mayfeld is actually doing – he’s leaving the room so Din can take the helmet off and eat at his leisure, without worrying that his face might be seen.

He isn’t sure why he’s so surprised that Mayfeld remembered, but even more surprising is that Din didn’t remember himself. He just expected that somehow, they’d be eating all this food together. 

“Thank you,” he says, when the silence starts to stretch to awkward lengths. “For the food,” he adds quickly, but Mayfeld just smiles briefly and nods.

“Any time,” Mayfeld replies. And for some reason, Din actually believes him.

**

The lack of noise is distracting enough during the day, but it’s even worse at night. It’s so quiet out here that Din has trouble sleeping, mind on high alert as his ears strain to make out any kind of sound. The whoosh of a speeder bike whizzing by, maybe, or voices raised in conversation. But there’s nothing – not even a strong gust of wind or the patter of rain, and the absolute silence is so unfamiliar that Din can’t shake the feeling that something must be wrong. Silence on the Crest meant engine failure, or the kid disappearing, or –

Wait. There’s an odd kind of scraping noise, coming from somewhere behind the house. Din sits up and slowly gets out of bed. Did he just imagine that, or did he –

No. There it is again. More scrapes, then a series of faint beeps, followed by… yes, Din thinks, quickly pulling his helmet on and grabbing his blaster. Footsteps, definitely footsteps. 

Someone must be trying to break into the house.

He cautiously makes his way out of the bedroom, glancing at Mayfeld’s room at the other end of the hall. He'd chosen the one furthest from Din's own room and the door’s shut tight, no light spilling from its edges; Mayfeld mustn’t have heard the break in yet. Din briefly contemplates waking him up but then decides that it’s probably easier to take care of this himself – he only heard one set of footsteps, after all, and he’s the one covered in beskar. It shouldn’t be anything he can’t handle alone.

Din creeps over to the back door. It’s still open, and there’s a faint glow coming from somewhere just outside the –

“Hey, what –”

Din has the intruder against the wall and the blaster at his neck in less than two seconds flat.

“Uh,” Mayfeld says, blinking. “Look, I’m sorry if I woke you, Mando, but I gotta say – this seems like a bit of an overreaction.” Despite the flippant words Mayfeld’s whole body is held taut, pressing against the wall as far back as he can get, and his eyes are wide with more than just surprise. In fact, he almost looks –

Afraid, Din realises. Mayfeld looks afraid of him. 

Din quickly lets go and steps back, raising his hands before stowing the blaster at his hip.

“Sorry,” he says. “I thought you were an intruder.” It sounds ridiculous now, saying it out loud, here in the dark and surrounded by the quiet, still night, Mayfeld still watching him like he half-expects to get disintegrated any second now. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t meant to–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mayfeld interrupts. “I probably shouldn’t be out here, anyway.”

“Why _are_ you out here?” Din asks. “It’s the middle of the night.” 

Mayfeld shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Din gives him a sidelong glance. “I guess blowing up a rhydonium refinery didn’t quite fix that for you, then?” 

“No,” Mayfeld replies with a small laugh, “not quite.” He takes a deep breath, then sits down on the top step of the entryway, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. “And you know what? It shouldn’t,” he adds quietly. “Nothing should, really.”

Din hesitates, then sits down beside him. The back doorstep is a little too small for the both of them, especially with all the armour on, and his left leg ends up pressed against Mayfeld’s right thigh. Din feels Mayfeld stiffen for a moment before he seems to force himself to relax. 

“You should go back in before the sun comes up,” Din says.

Mayfeld nods but makes no move to get up, nor open his eyes. 

“How much longer do you think I’ve got?”

Din shrugs. Their shoulders brush at the movement, and once again, Mayfeld tenses up for a split-second before he relaxes again. 

“Couple of hours, maybe.”

Another nod, then Mayfeld turns his head a little and cracks one eye open. There’s no moon tonight, just a scattering of stars overhead, and it’s too dark to see clearly without the helmet’s tracker on. But Din suddenly remembers the colour of Mayfeld’s eyes, the particular shade of blue he noticed for the very first time in Greef’s office a few days ago, and feels an odd sense of loss that he can’t see it again now.

“You can go back to bed, you know,” Mayfeld says. His voice is still unusually quiet. “No reason for you to stay up, too. There’s nothing out here but the two of us.”

“I couldn’t sleep, either,” Din admits. “It’s too quiet.”

“Oh, I get it,” Mayfeld says, and sounds amused. He opens his other eye too and turns to face Din properly, his wide grin a brief flash of white in the otherwise dark night. “So that’s the real reason you let me stay here, huh? Mando, buddy,” he adds, pressing a hand against his chest, “you wound me.” 

“Quiet and Migs Mayfeld don’t really go hand in hand,” Din points out, and Mayfeld’s grin turns into a sharp laugh. It makes their shoulders brush again but this time, Mayfeld doesn’t seem to notice.

“Well, don’t blame me if you get sick of it when I start to go stir crazy in a couple of days,” he warns. “I talk even more when I’m bored.”

“I’m sure I’ll learn to live with it.” Din leans his head back against the wall. “The helmet has a sound filter.” And when Mayfeld laughs again, another grin flashing white in the dark, Din can’t stop a smile of his own from spreading across his face, nor can he stop the thought that comes with it:

_It’s a shame that Mayfeld can’t see it, too._

**

“Any news?” 

Din shakes his head. He double-checks that the door is secure before heading further into the house, dropping a few bags of supplies he’d picked up in town on the kitchen table. 

“Nothing yet,” he replies. Mayfeld sighs and slumps back in his chair. “But no news is good news, right? Maybe you weren’t recognised after all.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Mayfeld taps his fingers against the table, one leg jerkily bouncing up and down. “I just don’t want to stay here much longer, that’s all.”

Din says nothing, and Mayfeld suddenly goes still. 

“Oh, come on, I didn’t mean it like that,” he adds. “Trust me, Mando – compared to some of the other places I’ve stayed in, and the roommates I’ve had? This is practically like living in a penthouse in Canto Bight.” Mayfeld shrugs. “All I meant was that I ought to get out of your hair soon. I’ve been here for over a week already.”

Din shakes his head again. “It doesn’t bother me.” 

And, Din realises with some surprise, it truly, honestly doesn’t. He’s gotten used to Mayfeld’s presence now – the fast-paced chatter, the home-cooked food, and most surprising of all, the unexpected moments of oddly comfortable silence. There’s been more than one night that’s ended with the two of them sitting together on the back step, watching the sun rise over the black sands and lava flats with not a word being said. It’s quiet, but it’s not the kind of empty silence that puts Din on edge. Sometimes Din suspects that Mayfeld values his company in a strangely parallel way that Din does his – where Din appreciates the way that Mayfeld can chase away the quiet, Mayfeld seems to appreciate the way Din can provide the quiet for him.

But that, apparently, isn’t the case right now. Mayfeld watches him for a moment, expression unreadable, before he asks the last question Din expects.

“So,” Mayfeld says. “When are you going to visit the kid?”

Din hasn’t spoken about Grogu at all these past few days and Mayfeld likewise has never brought him up, aside from that brief apology when he first moved in. It’s something Din assumed was done in tacit agreement, and something that he’s been silently grateful for; after all, he all but admitted that the real reason he wanted Mayfeld to stay here was because he needed a distraction from the loss. Of the kid, of the ship, of his quest, of –

_You did what you had to do. I never saw your face._

Of a lot of things, Din thinks, and looks away from Mayfeld’s steady gaze. He can still feel those blue eyes watching him, though, even through the beskar helmet, and Din feels almost as exposed as he did in that mess hall on Morak, when he had nothing at all to shield his bare, uncovered face.

This, too, is something that neither one of them has brought up. Never even hinted at, in fact, and Din knows that, on Mayfeld’s side at least, it has to be deliberate. Mayfeld has talked – and talked and talked and talked – at great length about all kinds of things while he’s been here, from things as controversial as the Empire versus the New Republic to things as inconsequential as the best way to make a cup of caf. The fact that he’s never so much as referenced what he saw on Morak is as significant as if he’d asked Din outright what it felt like to break the Creed.

“Mando–”

“I’m not going to,” Din interrupts. “He needs to focus on his training.” 

“And what about what you need?”

That makes Din look up again. Mayfeld is still watching him, but his eyes are guarded and Din can’t read the expression on his face at all. And isn’t that ironic, Din thinks. He’s the one whose face is hidden but it’s Mayfeld whose thoughts are better concealed. 

“What are you talking about?” he asks.

Mayfeld leans across the table. “Let me ask you something,” he says. “When was the last time you did something because you wanted to? Not because it was your job,” he adds, “or part of your quest, or because it was the right thing to do. Just because you _wanted_ to?” 

“I – I don’t know,” Din says slowly, after a moment’s thought. “Maybe not since before I became a Foundling.” He’d been taken directly to the Fighting Corps, and from there he went straight into service as a Guild bounty hunter. “You?”

Mayfeld’s mouth twists into something that’s not quite a smile. “Prison doesn’t exactly give you a lot of opportunities for that.”

“You’re not in prison now,” Din says. Mayfeld just raises his eyebrows and gestures to the house around them – the house that he hasn’t been able to leave for over a week. “Point taken,” Din concedes.

“Not the main point, though,” Mayfeld replies. His eyes brighten suddenly, somehow getting bluer from one moment to the next, in a way that Din’s started to learn means he’s discovered some irrefutable point and is about to hammer it home until he’s exhausted everything he can say about it. “You should go and visit the kid,” he insists. “Or at least go and find something you actually _want_ to do, instead of being stuck here babysitting me.”

It all sounds perfectly reasonable on the surface of it, but when Din doesn’t respond, Mayfeld sucks in a breath and abruptly stands. The screech of the chair’s legs against the tile seems unnaturally loud and Mayfeld freezes for a moment, before he suddenly moves again, unpacking the supplies Din had brought from town and putting them all away. He says absolutely nothing as he does it, and it’s this – the lack of a flood of words to emphasise his point – that makes Din stop and think. Really think.

Mayfeld described himself as just a grunt when he was still Imperial, but Din knows that isn’t quite true. He’d been a sharpshooter, fully trained, and after what happened on Morak, Din has first-hand experience of exactly what Mayfeld is capable of: his aim is as sure and his hands are as steady as anyone’s Din has ever seen. Fennec, Fett, Cara. Other Mandalorians.

So as Din watches Mayfeld busy himself in the kitchen, putting away parcels of meat and flour and fruit, Din can’t help but notice the way Mayfeld’s hands aren’t quite so steady now. He’s moving a little too slowly, a little too deliberately, like he knows he’s being watched. Din stares at his hands, at his fingers, at the exposed strip of his wrists when he reaches out to push something to the back of a shelf. Mayfeld had been wearing gloves on Morak, but he’s not wearing any now. The skin on his hands is pale, paler even than his face, and Din remembers thinking about how that paleness might look against the darker shade of his own skin – against his bare, uncovered face; a face that, at one point in time, only Mayfeld had ever seen.

 _Find something you want to do_ , Mayfeld said. _Just because you want to do it._

And Din realises, as the extended silence makes Mayfeld glance over with another guarded look in his eyes, that what he wants to do, right at this very moment, is stay right here. 

**

“I got word from Cara.”

Mayfeld’s head snaps up. He lowers the heat on whatever he has bubbling away on the stove – Din isn’t sure what it is, but it smells delicious – and walks over to where Din is standing by the back door. 

“Yeah?” he asks, the hope in his eyes making them seem very blue. “What’d she say? Did she and Greef find anything?” 

Din nods. “It looks like your ex-Imperial buddy has skipped town,” he says. “They’re pretty sure he’s gone offworld but they’re double-checking to see exactly where he went. And whether he sent any messages to anyone before he left.” 

The hope winks out and Mayfeld eyes darken. “So I still don’t have the all-clear to leave yet.” 

“Not quite,” Din says. “But it shouldn’t be more than another week at most.” 

Din weighs the risk, then reaches up and carefully lays one hand on Mayfeld’s shoulder. He’s still wearing his gloves, and all of his armour, but even through the layers of leather and beskar Din can feel the discomfort radiating from Mayfeld’s body, as clearly as a shockwave from a seismic charge. 

And yet, Mayfeld makes no attempt to move away. Instead he takes a deep, slow breath, and then – then he leans into Din’s hand. It’s barely perceptible, just the slightest increase in pressure against Din’s palm, but it’s there and Din felt it and from the way Mayfeld goes still for a moment, Mayfeld _knows_ he felt it too.

“Well, how about that, huh?” Mayfeld says. He’s grinning but it looks forced; just a little too wide, a little too bright. “You won’t have to put up with me buzzing in your ear for too much longer.”

Din moves his hand a little, fingertips pressing lightly into Mayfeld’s shoulder.

“I told you already,” he says. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“Yeah?” Mayfeld turns suddenly and looks right at him. Into the visor, into Din’s hidden eyes. “What doesn’t?” 

There’s something brittle in Mayfeld’s voice now, something dry and thin, and Din gets the sense that all it would take is one wrong word and whatever it is that Mayfeld has been trying to conceal would be ripped to pieces, just torn to shreds.

“You,” Din says unthinkingly. Mayfeld just stares at him, and it’s only now that Din is aware of just how close they’re standing, of how they’ve somehow ended up chest to chest. Mayfeld seems to become aware of it at the same time and something about his expression changes, a shift deep in his eyes, but it’s still nothing that Din can read. “You being here,” Din adds. He hears the faint catch in his own voice, clearly audible even through the beskar filter. “In the house.”

“Chasing away the quiet, you mean?” 

“Yes.” Din looks down at Mayfeld’s hands, pale and ungloved. “And other things, too.” He takes a breath and starts to reach up with his free hand. “Mayfeld –”

A sudden loud hiss cuts him off.

“Kriff,” Mayfeld swears, pulling out of Din’s grasp and making a run for the stove. “The stew–”

Din lets him go. Mayfeld doesn’t say another word about it, not while he salvages their dinner and not when he makes some flimsy excuse to flee to his room without even bothering to take any of it for himself. But regardless of Mayfeld’s uncharacteristic silence – or maybe, because of it – their conversation stays at the forefront of Din’s mind.

Because before he suddenly rushed off, before he cut short whatever Din was about to say, Mayfeld closed his eyes and for a one brief moment – the pause of a single heartbeat – he went perfectly, absolutely still. And in that moment of stillness, Din finally understood the look on Mayfeld’s face, and saw what Mayfeld had been so careful to keep hidden away.

A flash of something like longing, and a flash of something like fear.

**

Another night, another round of sleeplessness. 

Mayfeld kept to himself again today, with a vague excuse about feeling unwell. “My stomach, that’s all,” he’d said, shoving one last piece of bread into his mouth and quickly swallowing what was left of his caf. He must have been up before dawn to have baked the bread and eaten already. “Probably just getting a little antsy, you know how it is. I don’t think I’ve stayed in one place this long since I was stuck in the chop field.”

And then he’d disappeared into his bedroom and hadn’t come out again. Or at least, he didn’t while Din was in the house, too. Din headed out after he finished his own breakfast – into town to check for news on Cara and Greef with the Mythrol – and by the time he came back, the sun was starting to set and there was another meal waiting for him in the kitchen, warm and simmering on the stove. But even then, Mayfeld still didn't emerge and the only indication that he was still in the house at all was the occasional sound of footsteps coming from his room down the hall.

And now, in that indeterminate time between days, when it’s still too early to be tomorrow and too late to still be today, Din finds himself lying in bed and wide awake again, the quiet pressing down on him and keeping any hope of sleep well and truly at bay.

At least it’s not totally silent. He heard Mayfeld get up a little while ago – the slide of a door opening and closing, followed by careful, light footsteps passing by before they disappeared into the bathroom just opposite his own bedroom door. There’s a faint rush of the water running, and the odd splash here and there, and after a whole evening spent alone with the slience, Din is absurdly grateful that something, anything, is breaking through it now.

But the fact that it’s – Din checks the time – well before sunrise; the fact that Mayfeld decided to shower now, in the middle of the night, when he probably expected Din to be sound asleep? It can’t be a coincidence, and it makes Din sit up and turn the lights on when he hears the water turn off. It makes him put the helmet back on, and makes him stand and wait by the door, and when he hears Mayfeld come out of the bathroom, it makes him step out into the hallway and –

– run _right_ into him. Right into Mayfeld, fresh out of the shower; right into Mayfeld, wearing nothing but a towel.

Mayfeld backs up so quickly that he slips on the tile and Din acts without thinking, reaching out with both hands and grabbing his waist to steady him. But Mayfeld tries to twist away and off-balance as he is, all he succeeds in doing is slamming into the wall at his back, Din’s hands still tight around waist, gloved fingers digging into pale skin that’s still a little damp and now, slowly flushing pink.

“I – I was taking a shower,” Mayfeld says. “Sorry if I woke you.” He’s holding himself very still, frozen but for the rapid rise and fall of his chest, like he can’t quite catch his breath. 

“Strange time for that,” Din replies. He shifts his grip on Mayfeld’s waist a little, loosening his fingers just enough to feel Mayfeld’s back go tense beneath his hands. It makes Din hyper aware of the fact that so much of Mayfeld’s skin is on display right now, exposed and bare for Din to see, or touch, or –

“You’re very pale,” Din hears himself say, staring at the red-gold stubble that frames Mayfeld’s mouth; at the freckles, barely visible in the low light, that are scattered across his nose and cheeks. “Paler than me." Din feels his heart pounding in his chest, harder and faster than it had been, only moments ago. “But then,” he adds slowly, “you already know that.” 

Mayfeld shakes his head. “I don’t know that,” he insists. “I never saw your face. I never saw anything –”

“Because I did what I had to do?”

“That’s right,” Mayfeld says quickly. “So it’s fine, Mando. I never saw anything at all.”

Mayfeld is still forcing himself to stay still, limbs tense and pressed against the wall as far back as he can go. His gaze flicks from Din’s helmet to his shoulders and back again, over and over, and Din wonders what he can see – beyond his own distorted reflection in the beskar, beyond what everyone else sees when they look at Din and see nothing but a Mandalorian in a full suit of armour. 

Because Mayfeld must see more than that. He must have thought about Din’s face behind the helmet, must have remembered that Din’s eyes are brown and that his hair curls a little at the ends. He _must_ have, Din thinks, a little desperately, because Din has thought about it too – and more than once, he admits to himself, a lot more than once. Mayfeld seeing his face. Mayfeld _knowing_ his face.

And yet, watching as Mayfeld continues to avert his eyes, Din thinks about how easy it would be to just take the offer that Mayfeld first gave him on Morak; to pretend that nothing ever happened, that he never took the helmet off and that no one saw his face. To take his hands off Mayfeld’s waist now and take a deliberate step back, to walk away and keep pretending that he never defied the Creed. It would be easy, Din thinks. It would be so, so easy. 

But Din knows now that the Creed is more than just a set of instructions, more than rules and words. Following the Creed isn’t just about conformity, or even just about faith – it’s about dignity and pride and honour, and if there’s one thing that Din has learned after breaking the Guild's code to rescue the kid from the Empire, it’s that there is no honour in refusing to face the truth.

“You did see,” Din says. “You saw my face.” 

If anything, Mayfeld goes even more unnaturally still. 

“It was an accident,” Mayfeld says. His voice is hoarse. “Just bad luck, that’s all. It doesn’t mean anything, Mando. It _doesn’t._ ” 

He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, and Din experimentally leans in a little closer, just to see what Mayfeld will do. A sharp intake of breath follows, and then Mayfeld briefly closes his eyes. 

“I’m not so sure that’s true,” Din says. “Things seem to have happened for a reason. I found the kid, then I found Cara. That led to Greef coming around and then I found other Mandalorians, found Jedis… found you. Again.” Mayfeld looks away at that. “You saw my face,” Din repeats. “And maybe that happened for a reason, too.”

But Mayfeld is shaking his head. “You’re not making any sense, Mando,” he insists, and this is more like the Mayfeld that Din is used to, the one who talks like speaking is some kind of compulsion, like he couldn’t stop even if he tried. “This is – this is _dumb_ , okay? This is stupid, this is –” Mayfeld swallows. “I mean I know I've given you crap about it before, all the armour and the helmet and what you might look like underneath it, all your rules and why you even bothered to follow them, but that was just – that was just talk, Mando, just words, just a bunch of stupid, meaningless words, and I –” 

Mayfeld cuts himself off, and when he speaks again, Din isn’t even all that surprised to hear his earlier thoughts coming out of Mayfeld’s mouth. Because of course Mayfeld understands, of course Mayfeld’s had the same thoughts running through his head, too. Out of all the people Din has met, of all the people he’s come to know and respect and consider friends, it’s Migs Mayfeld alone that’s seen his face. And that has to mean something. It has to.

“I was wrong, all right? Your Creed – the Way – it's more than just words, Mando," Mayfeld says. "It’s – it’s belief, you know? It’s faith.” 

“And?” Din asks, knowing there’s more to this, that Mayfeld is still holding something back. 

Mayfeld closes his eyes again.

“And if anyone had to see your face,” Mayfeld says, voice very, very quiet, “it sure as hell shouldn’t have been me.”

Din stares at Mayfeld’s tense expression, at the unhappy line of his mouth and the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks. He’s so pale that he almost glows in the low light, and Din finds himself leaning in again, slowly, one hand sliding up from Mayfeld’s waist and up along his chest until he’s curling his fingers around Mayfeld’s shoulder. The movement makes Mayfeld open his eyes again – open them wide, almost alarmed – but Din just keeps staring at the sight of his hand on Mayfeld’s bare arm, unable to stop himself from wondering what this would look like if he didn’t have his gloves on; if they were _really_ touching, skin-to-skin. 

“But it was you,” Din says, and comes to a swift decision. He raises his hands and grabs the lower edge of the helmet, the hiss of the latch unlocking making Mayfeld’s eyes go even wider. “And I’m not sorry that it was.” 

“What the hell are you doing?” Mayfeld exclaims, horrified, grabbing Din’s wrists to stop him. “Are you cra–”

“What you told me to do, Mayfeld,” Din interrupts. “I’m doing something I want to do. Just because I want to do it.”

Din takes the helmet off. 

And Mayfeld stares, and keeps on staring, like he doesn’t know how to stop – not even blinking, like he’s trying to take in as much as he possibly can for however long he’s allowed to take it. It’s not like when they were on Morak, when Mayfeld only looked at him when he had to, when Mayfeld was preoccupied with the mission and Valin Hess and the ghosts of the past that unexpectedly rose up, shaking memories that Mayfeld had tried to leave for dead. Now, there’s nothing to take his attention away, nothing at all, and Din stays still and lets Mayfeld look as much as he wants to. He watches those blue eyes run all over his bare face – across his mouth, over his jaw, into his –

“Brown Eyes,” Mayfeld says, sounding distracted. “I really should’ve come up with something better than that.”

“Like what?” 

Mayfeld suddenly grins, just briefly, and Din feels his stomach do a strange sort of flip at the sight of it. 

“You know what,” Mayfeld says, half-rueful, half-embarrassed, “I can’t actually think of a damn thing.” He pauses, then adds, “It’s, uh, a little hard to concentrate right now.” Mayfeld’s hands hover near Din’s hips, but they don’t touch him, not even once.

“You can...” Din starts, but isn’t entirely sure how to finish the sentence. Allowing Mayfeld to see his face is already far more intimate than anything else Din has ever done, or could do. He puts the helmet down on the floor and settles his own hands on Mayfeld’s shoulders again. “Can I,” Din amends, “can I –”

“Sure, yeah, of course, yeah,” Mayfeld says immediately. “Anything, whatever, you can –” He clears his throat when Din smiles a little, amused by the rush of jumbled words. “I mean, you know. Go right ahead.” 

So Din does. He runs his fingers down Mayfeld’s bare torso, both his gloves still on. Only his face is uncovered, every other layer of armour still in place – vambraces and cuirass and pauldrons, even the cuisses around his thighs. Din keeps his touch light, barely skimming Mayfeld’s skin, but Mayfeld still gasps a little, biting his lip as Din watches, transfixed, at the way Mayfeld’s chest and neck flush with colour, at the way his throat moves when he swallows. 

His thumb accidentally brushes over a nipple on his way down Mayfeld’s chest, and the sudden noise Mayfeld makes – a sort of wordless, choked-off curse – makes Din pause. Mayfeld goes still but he doesn’t say a word, taking several deep breaths and looking anywhere but at Din’s bare face. 

So Din does it again. He brushes over one nipple, then the other, and when Mayfeld still won’t look at him, Din touches him with firmer strokes, one hand rolling a nipple between thumb and forefinger while the other trails down, down, down – mapping the shape of a ribcage and the sharp jut of a hip bone, before tracing the soft curve of a stomach and venturing even further down than that – all the way down, until his fingers find the edge of the towel.

“Mando,” Mayfeld says. His voice is more unsteady than Din has ever heard it, and when he glances up, he sees that Mayfeld’s eyes are no longer blue. They’re dark, very dark, and the look in them is so intense that Din half-wonders how other people can stand to see each other like this, all the time – with no barriers between them, no filters, nothing at all to soften the blow of another person’s gaze. “Mando, I – you don’t have to –”

“I know I don’t have to,” Din says, cutting him off. He licks his lips and doesn’t miss the way Mayfeld’s gaze drops straight to his mouth. “I know,” he says again, and slips his hand under the towel. “But I want to.”

The back of Mayfeld’s head hits the wall with a dull thud when Din wraps his fingers around him. Din can feel the heat of Mayfeld’s cock against his palm, even through the barrier of the gloves, and the thought of what this might feel like without the leather in the way makes Din’s mind go suddenly blank, a sharp spike of pure _want_ piercing right through him – strong enough that it makes him gasp. And when he starts moving his hand, Din looks up and sees that Mayfeld isn’t doing much better – he’s staring at Din’s mouth again, lips parted and chest heaving as he tries to keep himself still. But soon enough his hips start moving, tiny sharp thrusts that he seems to have no control over, and as Din tightens his grip and speeds up his hand, Mayfeld’s eyes go from dark and hot to bright and desperate, gaze still fixed on Din’s mouth.

 _My mouth_ , Din thinks blankly, _he can see my mouth_. He can see Din’s whole face. He can _see_ it.

Din slows his hand but tightens his fist, moving up and down the length of Mayfeld’s cock in long, steady strokes, so slowly that Mayfeld is forced to close his eyes.

“Man _– Mando_ ,” Mayfeld chokes, desperate, but then Din leans in, further and further until there’s barely any space left between them, until he can feel Mayfeld panting against his own mouth. Mayfeld’s eyes flicker open in surprise. And he doesn’t move or look away or say another word – not when Din starts stroking faster, not when Din stares at his parted lips, not even when Din finds a spot that makes him go tense all over, that makes his jaw drop in a wordless moan.

All Mayfeld has to do is lean in. One tiny tilt of his head and their lips would meet and Din would finally find out what else that mouth could do.

But Mayfeld doesn’t, and Din knows with a strange certainty that he _won’t_. And that’s what makes Din raise his free hand and touch Mayfeld’s face, his cheek, his jaw; it’s what makes him brush his gloved fingers over Mayfeld’s lips. And when Mayfeld looks him dead in the eye and takes those fingers into his own mouth, when Mayfeld starts sucking on them as he thrusts into Din’s tight fist, Din knows that whatever else happens between them, he’ll never, ever forget this: the sight of Mayfeld’s pale lips against the dark leather of his gloves, the slide of Mayfeld’s cock in his hand, the way Mayfeld’s eyes can seem hotter than a blaster bolt. 

A few more strokes is all it takes – Mayfeld’s eyes suddenly shut tight, whole body going tense all over, before he makes another wordless noise and comes hard in Din’s hand. He slumps against the wall, panting, Din’s fingers slipping out of his mouth.

“Uh,” Mayfeld says, after he’s caught his breath and the silence between them starts to feel oppressive. He looks down at the tiles, at Din’s shoes, at his own bare feet – anywhere but Din’s face, or the mess on Din’s gloves. Mayfeld straightens up a little, hitching up the towel that’s somehow still tied around his waist. “Listen, Mando–”

“Din.”

That makes Mayfeld look up. 

“What?”

“Din Djarin.” A pause, then Din takes a single, deep breath. “You know my face,” Din adds. “You should know my name, too.”

Mayfeld looks floored. And after what they’d just done together, Din can’t quite believe that it’s this that’s left Mayfeld speechless.

“You don’t have to use it,” he starts to say, only for the words to dissolve on his tongue when Mayfeld reaches up, one hand hovering in the air for a moment before slowly, almost hesitantly, landing against his temple. Mayfeld’s fingers carefully run through Din’s hair before they settle against the side of his neck, and Din doesn’t realise that his eyes have drifted shut until Mayfeld asks him to open them again.

“Din,” Mayfeld says. “Din Djarin.”

Din hasn’t heard his name said like that in – in never, he realises. No one’s ever said his name quite like this before. Whispered and thoughtful, almost disbelieving; so quiet that it almost sounds awed. 

Din swallows, feeling the lack of anything covering his face more intensely than ever. But the movement of his throat draws Mayfeld’s gaze, and when he looks up again, into Din’s eyes, Din hears Mayfeld’s breath hitch. Mayfeld’s head moves, a tiny movement that’s aborted almost as soon as it’s begun, but he’s staring at Din’s mouth again and then Din is the one who’s moving, who’s pressing Mayfeld back against the wall and leaning in.

Mayfeld’s other hand comes up and touches Din’s face. 

“Can I,” he starts, just as Din had asked earlier, and stops before he finishes the question – just as Din had done, too. “Din,” Mayfeld says, fingers curling around the back of Din’s head but not pulling him any closer. “Can I –”

“Yes.”

The first touch of his lips makes Din’s eyes fall shut again. He’s never – 

It’s nothing like anything he’s felt before, this very careful brush of lips against lips, or the faint scratch of stubble against his jaw. Mayfeld is moving very slowly, almost gently, and the thought of Migs Mayfeld doing anything gently is almost enough to make Din laugh. Mayfeld must notice his mouth curving into a smile, though, because he pulls back a little and raises an eyebrow.

“I’ll admit I’m a little out of practice, Mando – Din – but come on, it can’t be that bad.” 

“Mayfeld,” Din says, leaning right into him and pinning him against the wall. “Are you ever quiet for more than a few minutes at a time?”

“I think you already know the answer to that,” Mayfeld replies. Without warning he grabs Din by the hips and pulls him closer – much, _much_ closer, so close that Din is suddenly aware of two very important things: that he hasn’t come yet, and that the armour is a very, very close fit. “But let’s see if the same is true for you.”

And Mayfeld leans in and kisses him again, and again and again and again – in turns slow and soft, and deep and dirty, tongue flicking over the roof of Din’s mouth, teeth nipping at his lips, coaxing out a series of breathless gasps and desperate moans that would have made Din flush with embarrassment if he was aware of anything but the feeling of Mayfeld’s mouth on him. 

Mayfeld kisses like he talks – endlessly, skillfully, like he’s trying to prove a point; like he might not get the chance to again. And Din is so caught up in every brush of lips, every sweep of tongue, that he’s not even aware of the building tension in his body, or of the heat that floods his veins. One moment they’re just kissing, lips and tongue and teeth, and the next Din is coming – and coming and _coming_ , entirely untouched.

He's forced to break the kiss with a surprised gasp. Din feels his face burning but can’t quite stop himself from glancing up, especially when Mayfeld is utterly silent. No comment, no laughter, and when Din sees his face, not even the hint of a smile. Mayfeld is just staring at him, wide-eyed, seemingly at a loss for what to do.

“That,” Mayfeld says, still staring, “that was so – that was so –”

“Embarrassing?” Din suggests, and starts to look away again.

“So _hot_ ,” Mayfeld blurts out. His face colours when Din frowns at him, trying to figure out if it’s a joke or not. But Mayfeld just gets redder and redder, and eventually he scrubs a hand over his face and shakes his head. “This is the worst,” he mutters. “I’m a grown man. I was a soldier. I was a _criminal_ , for god’s sake. How the hell do you make me feel like I’m some kind of blushing virgin on their wedding day?”

“I don’t know,” Din says, leaning in a little, then a little more, until Mayfeld gets the idea and pulls him closer again. “And you may not be a virgin, and we may not be getting married, but still.” His lips curve into another smile when Mayfeld raises an eyebrow again. “If you feel like this is your wedding day,” Din adds, “I feel like I should make your wedding night last a little longer than this.” He schools his face into what he hopes is a serious expression. “It’s the honourable thing to do.”

Mayfeld opens his mouth – to call him some unspeakable name or make another flippant remark, no doubt – but Din didn’t become one of the best bounty hunters in the parsec by accident. He can recognise an opportunity when he sees one.

He leans in and catches Mayfeld’s lips, and takes full advantage of that open mouth.

**

“Greef and Cara are back,” Din says without preamble, as soon as the door slides shut behind him. Mayfeld looks up but there’s no excitement on his face, just resignation, which is understandable enough – there hasn’t been any progress in days. “They found him,” Din adds, and grins a secret grin behind his helmet when Mayfeld suddenly sits up. 

“And?” Mayfeld prompts, when Din says nothing more. “Come on, Mando, you gotta give me something harder than that.” Din just looks at him, still saying nothing, until Mayfeld rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean,” he adds. “What’d they say?”

“He had no idea what they were talking about,” Din replies. “In fact, he barely even remembered who you were.” 

Mayfeld gapes for a moment. Then he slumps back in his chair and lets out a relieved breath. “Never thought I’d be so grateful to be so unmemorable,” he says, shaking his head. “Can you believe it? I’ve been stuck here for weeks, and all for nothing! No reason at all.” He lapses into silence, then seems to freeze. “Guess I can leave now,” he adds, glancing briefly at Din before looking away again. 

“Guess you can,” Din agrees. He hesitates, then starts heading for the kitchen and doesn’t look back. “By the way,” he adds, pushing past the uncertainty and the doubt and forcing the words out anyway, “we’re running out of caf.”

There’s a long, long beat of silence. 

“Oh,” Mayfeld says eventually. “Are we?” 

His voice isn’t quite steady and Din closes his eyes at the catch in it, at all the things it could – or couldn’t – possibly mean. He hears Mayfeld’s footsteps draw closer, coming out of the front room and following him into the kitchen, until they’re standing side by side.

Din holds his breath, eyes still closed, and just – waits.

“I’ll be sure to pick some up, then,” Mayfeld adds slowly, “on my way back from town.”

Din opens his eyes again. Mayfeld is watching him with a carefully blank look on his face, a blankness that starts to fracture when Din reaches up and takes his helmet off, laying it down on the table before lifting his head and looking Mayfeld in the eye.

Blue, Din thinks. Blue eyes, looking right into brown – right into them, with nothing in between. 

“Sounds good,” Din says. He smiles a little. “Dinner first, though?” 

Mayfeld raises his eyebrows. “You better be asking me out for a meal, Mando,” he says, trying and failing to sound annoyed, “and not telling me to get some food on the table. I’m not your kept man, you know.”

Din sniffs the air. “You already cooked something, didn’t you.” 

“Of course I did.” Mayfeld shakes his head. “I may be a lot of things, Mando, but I'm not a thief. I pull my weight… maybe even more than my weight, since I don’t recall any meals that you’ve made me. In fact –”

Din lets the words wash over him as they both start pulling out cups and plates and cutlery, moving around each other with practised ease. He’s only half-listening, the words less interesting to him than the sound of Mayfeld’s voice, and when they’re finally sitting down with steaming bowls of soup in front of them, he glances up to find Mayfeld frowning at him, a slightly suspicious look in his eyes.

“What are you smiling about?” he asks.

It takes a moment for Din to realise why the question seems so strange, so unexpected.

He glances at the helmet, moved to the bench to make room for the food; feels a warm waft of steam brush his face, rising up from his bowl of soup.

“Nothing,” Din answers. He looks at Mayfeld and smiles again, and when Mayfeld sees it – sees him smiling, sees his face – he watches Mayfeld flush a little, understanding dawning in his eyes. “Nothing at all.”


End file.
